More than 350 inmates of the Poojappura central jail in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram have tested positive for the coronavirus in the last week. One of the prisoners who tested positive – a murder accused – has died on Sunday, a top prison official said. The under-trial prisoner was the first to test positive for the virus in the prison after which cases increased exponentially among inmates as well as one of the staff, jail superintendent Santhosh S said.
As many as 145 fresh cases were detected on Sunday, he said, adding that barring three people who were shifted to hospital, the others have been kept in a special isolation area within the prison.
"An under-trial prisoner in a murder case, Manikandan, who was lodged here since 2016, passed away at the medical college hospital here. He was admitted to the hospital on August 10," he told PTI.
After he was admitted to hospital, the officials had been carrying out tests in the prison, where more than 970 people are lodged.
The superintendent said that a total of 197 tests were done on Wednesday and Thursday, out of which 100 people were first found to be positive, followed by another 113 in the next two days.
"Today, we tested 298 prisoners out of which 145 have turned out positive," he said, adding that besides them, one positive case was found among the over 300 jail staff. That would make a total of 359 cases just within the jail premises.
Two of the infected had been shifted to hospitals and the others, all asymptomatic, were being given adequate treatment, the official said.
Since May, the prison department in Kerala has been screening new remand prisoners for COVID-19 and only those who test negative were being lodged in various jails.
Prisons in the state can accommodate 6,250 inmates and have over 1,600 staff, officials said.
On Sunday, Kerala has reported 1,530 new cases, out of which 519 are in Thiruvananthapuram.
(With PTI input)
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